It's a good thing the NHL hasn't handcuffed the future sale of the team by placing a giant list of conditions in front of potential buyers. [...] Oh, what's that? They did place a list of conditions in front of a potential buyer?

If Hooters said that Pittsburgh was a "great market" for beer and chicken wings, but that the only way they could open a restaurant there was if someone else paid for it to be built, what would you think? To be polite about it, you'd think that you and Hooters had different definitions of what constitutes a great market.

To be fair, Mandel does say "if we do (build a new structure), we need to be creative and not burden the taxpayers," but I have a feeling he and I have different ideas about what is meant by "burden." I'm of the "don't burden me with anything considering you can't even plough our streets properly with the money we give you" variety, for example, whereas he might be of the "it's only a burden of a few hundred million" variety.